ناصر شیربگی

This article presents a theory using an interpretive approach to explore the role of counseling and psychological services in empowering women in management and leadership positions at universities. The study systematically examines this role through data collected from 22 participants, including students, staff, professors, and female university managers, from Kurdistan University in Sanandaj and Salah al-Din University in Erbil. Participants were purposefully selected, and data was gathered via semi-structured interviews. Analysis involved a novel method and continuous comparative analysis through three-stage theoretical coding. This process identified 300 open codes, 35 central codes, and seven selective codes: mental ability, economic ability, political ability, social ability, group ability, physical ability, and academic ability. The findings revealed that empowerment is a process rather than a product. For counseling and psychological service programs to be effective, all individuals involved in the empowerment process must have a clear understanding of its requirements and methods. Ultimately, the success of these efforts is likely determined by the women themselves. While empowerment is crucial within universities, creating a positive organizational atmosphere and a supportive culture that fosters spontaneous empowerment among female students, employees, and managers is equally important. Moreover, establishing empowerment initiatives strengthens the move towards university independence and reinforces the perception of higher education institutions as unique entities with distinct cultures. The study also highlights the importance of context and situational factors in implementing empowerment, emphasizing the need to avoid applying models that do not align with cultural contexts. Finally, university administrators must be personally committed to empowering women in management and leadership roles before any efforts can be successful.

Despite the complexity and ambiguity in the concept of entrepreneurship, the expectations of governments, policymakers and education stakeholders have led to increased pressure on schools to develop entrepreneurship and financial independence. Very little research has been done on entrepreneurial leadership in schools. Therefore, this general question was raised, what is the relationship between entrepreneurship and school leadership? Focusing on the transcendental phenomenology approach of Moustakas, the present research tried to count the lived experiences of 19 school principals who were selected purposefully and using the criterion sampling technique. A three-step sequential phenomenological interview protocol was used. The analysis and coding of the interviews were done using the three-stage thematic analysis method (basic, organizing and global) and drawing the theme networks, and Maxqda2020 software was used for data management. At the end of the thematic analysis, a total of 90 basic themes, 34 organizing themes and finally 8 global themes were counted, which were: acquisition entrepreneurship, financial efficiency, financial literacy, educational entrepreneurship, social activism, school cultural ambassador, organizational entrepreneurship, and independent entrepreneurship. The experiences of the participants indicated that the leaders adopted two main strategies to implement entrepreneurial leadership in the school: first, policies to advance school affairs, communicate with parents and teachers, provide diverse and extracurricular courses for students, prioritize assignments and promoting flexibility in the teaching-learning process, these were intra-school solutions. On the other hand, school entrepreneurial leaders used external strategies such as public visits to the school, taking risks, promoting collaborative work, and gaining power for the school

Method: This study is practical in terms of purpose, and descriptive correlational in terms of method. The statistical population includes all teachers from second normal secondary schools in the first and second districts of Sanandaj city during the academic year of 2021-2, totalling 686 individuals. A sample size of 343 was selected using a simple random sampling method. Data was collected through three questionnaires: The 10-Item Ethical Leadership Scale by Brown and Trevino (2005), The 12-Item Collective Efficacy Questionnaire by Goddard (2001), and The 9-Item Questionnaire by Schaufeli et al. (2002) utilizing a five-point Likert scale. The face validity of the questionnaires was confirmed through expert opinions, while their construct validity was established by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). To ensure questionnaire reliability, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was utilized. The resulting reliability coefficients for the ethical leadership, self-efficacy, and job involvement questionnaires were 0.91, 0.72, and 0.93, respectively. After verifying that the parametric assumptions were met, the data was analysed using Pearson’s correlation test and structural equation modelling via SPSS software. The results revealed a favourable fit for the research’s structural model, indicating a direct relationship between the ethical leadership style of school managers and teachers’ collective efficacy and job involvement. Furthermore, the ethical leadership status of school managers emerged as a significant predictor for teachers’ levels of collective efficacy and job involvement. These findings suggest that demonstrating ethical leadership behaviours can enhance teachers’ self-efficacy, thereby fostering greater passion and job involvement among them

This research mainly aimed to identify the indicators of pedagogically-centered leadership in Sanandaj primary schools, which was conducted using a qualitative research approach and a descriptive phenomenology strategy. The two main questions raised in the research were as follows. According to the mentalities and experiences of the participants, what are the meanings and indicators of pedagogically-centered leadership in Iranian elementary schools? What characteristics can make pedagogically-centered leaders separate and unique leader from other educational leaders? The current research is developmental-applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of approach, which was conducted using a descriptive phenomenology strategy. To collect data, 18 primary school principals were selected by purposive sampling and interviewed through three-stage phenomenological interview protocols. Their perspectives and experiences were investigated during the interviews. After conducting the interviews, the data were first manually analyzed, and then by MAXqda 2020 software, based on three-stage thematic analysis (basic, organizing, and global) of Attride-Stirling, analyzed. As the result of data analysis, 90 initial codes, 42 basic themes, 18 organizing themes, and finally, 8 global themes were specified. Also, four distinctive characteristics were identified as unique features of a pedagogically-centered leader: participation-seeker, activist of social justice and equal opportunities, valuing subcultures, and leader of leaders. Findings implicitly indicated that the implementation of this style of leadership in schools requires major changes in the mental paradigms of school community members. These changes include changing the paradigm of playing fixed roles to flexible ones, changing the paradigm of management to leadership, changing the paradigm of bureaucracy to specialization, changing the paradigm of teaching-centered to learning-centered, changing the paradigm of parental participation to parental involvement, and changing the paradigm of knowledge transfer to knowledge creation in students

Although information and communication technology (ICT) is discussed in different aspects of education for a long time and numerous scholarly works have been published by Iranian researchers in Persian and English, but a study that illustrates the whole status of published works is not yet conducted. There is no reliable source to display the body of knowledge produced in this field. For this reason, it is necessary to investigate state of the art of ICT in educational system of Iran through a systematic review of scientific published papers. The present research aims in identifying, interpreting and describing the topics and approaches used by the Iranian authors to study ICT in the educational system of Iran. Achieving the identity or knowledge base of this field is performed with an descriptive-interpretive approach in order to perceive the status of technology application in the educational system of Iran. The research population includes all articles published in the journals of Education and ICT. In this regard, research articles in the field of ICT in the educational system in both Persian and English languages were searched in databases between 2001 and 2022. By using the systematic review method, a list of related keywords and concepts were searched in Persian and English databases which include related journals. After conducting the initial search and applying the inclusion criteria, 112 articles were included in the study. Finally, a detailed review and in-depth investigation was conducted by using qualitative content analysis. Based on the results of the analysis, four dimensions of ICT in the educational system were extracted: “Leadership”, “Professional development”, “Assessment”, and “Teaching-learning process”. Analyses shows that these dimensions are not considered evenly. Sub topics of these four areas as well as ignored areas are discussed. Also, future directions are proposed

This study was conducted based on dual purposes; the first purpose was validation of the leadership creativity assessment scale from the perspective of teachers; the second purpose was to establish a qualification profile of the principals` leadership creativity using a standard tool. The current research applied a positivist epistemological orientation with a quantitative approach and evaluation method. The study population involved 1256 Sanandaj high school teachers of which 296 teachers (both meals and female) were selected by stratified random sampling using selected using Krejci - Morgan Table. In evaluating the validity of managerial creativity questionnaire factor analysis was used and in assessing its reliability of it, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was applied to assess principles` of managerial creativity by teachers and the influence of demographic variables on teachers` assessment. Based on the findings of the study teachers evaluated their principals` level of Leadership creativity at a high level in their workplace. Moreover, it was revealed that teachers` demographic variables had no significant correlation to the scores of the Leadership creativity assessment.